Superiority Conceit in Buddhist Traditions by Bhikkhu Analayo

Author:Bhikkhu Analayo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wisdom Publications

5. AUTHENTICATING THE ABHIDHARMA

The Buddha’s assumed omniscience appears to have been one of the chief strands that influenced the emergence of Abhidharma thought. This significant development does not appear to be merely the product of formal elements, such as summaries (māṭikā) or question and answer exchanges (Anālayo 2014b: 21–28). Instead, a central driving force seems to have been the attempt to provide a comprehensive map of the teachings, similar in thrust to the notion of omniscience that had eventually been attributed to the Buddha.

Comparable to the beginnings of the bodhisattva ideal, initial stages of Abhidharma thought can be discerned through comparative study of the early discourses (Anālayo 2014b). Besides being invested with an increasing aura of supremacy, the gradually emerging corpus of Abhidharma teachings also needed to be authenticated as stemming from the historical Buddha himself. For this purpose, members of the Theravāda traditions employed the same strategies, be this intentionally or in the sincere belief that such teachings indeed stemmed from the Buddha, that they have tended to criticize in the case of their Mahāyāna brethren.

The way Theravādins solve the problem of authenticating the Abhidharma can be seen in the Visuddhimagga’s account of a sojourn of the Buddha in the Heaven of the Thirty-Three, during which he purportedly taught the Abhidharma to the denizens of heaven (translated by Ñāṇamoli 1991: 387). Buddhaghosa relates that the Buddha would daily repeat, in the presence of his human disciple Sāriputta, what he had just taught to the denizens of heaven. In this way, the transmission of the Abhidharma was ensured.

The Visuddhimagga also reports that the ruler of the Heaven of the Thirty-Three built a flight of stairs for the Buddha’s descent back to earth, after the completion of his sojourn of three months in heaven (translated by Ñāṇamoli 1991: 388). Given his earlier easy commutation to heaven by supernormal powers, it is unexpected that his descent would require stairs. Closer inspection of relevant material gives the impression that this idea would have resulted from a process of cross-fertilization between text and art (Anālayo 2015d: 424–29), similar to the development of some of the Buddha’s physical marks, discussed in the previous chapter (see p. 45). During an early period of “aniconic” depiction of the Buddha, a ladder or a flight of stairs would have been an obvious way to symbolize that he is descending. Such symbolic presentation appears to have been taken literally by later generations, leading to the idea that there must have been an actual flight of stairs by which the Buddha descended from heaven. Figure 8 shows the employment of a kind of ladder on which the Buddha descends to earth, after the completion of his three-month period of teaching Abhidharma in heaven.

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